It was Mrs McKechnie who first told Yung of petitions for Lionel Terry’s release. She pointed out articles in the newspapers, letters to the editor. Soon every Chinese in Wellington, in the whole damned country, knew. Yung organised a counter-petition. He wrote the Chinese version and got Annie Wong to translate it into English.
‘This is the man who murdered one of us in Haining Street,’ he told Mei-lin. ‘He’ll do it again without hesitation.’
‘But I don’t know how to write,’ Mei-lin said. ‘I don’t even know how to sign my name.’ Her hand rested on her pregnant belly.
‘Make a mark like this,’ Yung said, drawing a cross on the back of his hand. ‘I’ll write your name beside it.’
‘Why ask her?’ Shun said, as he walked past carrying a box of oranges.
‘Shun Goh,’ Yung said, ‘does not Liang Ch’i-chao say if China’s 200 million men are joined by 200 million women, then what can stand in our way? We are few in this land. How much more do we need our women?’
Shun shrugged and carried the box into the shop.
Mei-lin took the pen and made a wavering cross on the petition. She smiled at Yung, who did not meet her eyes. Yung could see why his brother bought her.
How many Chinese women were there in this town? Fifteen? Maybe not even that. Even when you included Mei-lin and Annie Wong and Cousin Gok-nam’s wife and the babies and young girls.
There were hundred men’s women, dirty uncouth gweilo women who sold their services, and a few of the men went to them, or the women came directly to the men. But who wanted to share his woman?
As Yung trimmed sack after sack of cauliflowers and cabbages, he sighed. Sometimes when he looked at Mei-lin, when he heard the softness of her voice, when he lay at night alone, he felt an ache. Of desolation.